Текст книги " The White Gryphon"

Автор книги: Mercedes Lackey

Соавторы: Ларри Диксон
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

She– no—Zhaneel felt her beak gaping open. "You—what?" She shook her head violently. "You lost—laundry? And for thisyou would be dismissed and disgraced?" She shook her head again, and the words made no more sense than they had before. She blurted out the first thing that came into her mind. "Are you people insane?"

She did not doubt Makke, nor that events would follow precisely as Makke described. But—dismissal? For that?

"Great lady—" Makke dabbed at her eyes and straightened a little, trying to meet Zhaneel's gaze without breaking down again. "Great lady, it is a matter of honor, you see. If it were my own laundry, or that of the Chief of Servants—or even that of a ranking lady, it would be of—of less concern. But it is the envoy'slaundry that I have lost. I mustbe dismissed, for there is no greater punishment for such carelessness, and it is our way that the punishment must equal the rank of the victim. This is—in our law, it is the same as if I had stolen his property. I am a thief, and I deserve no better, surely you must see this."

"I see nothing of the kind," Zhaneel said stoutly. "I see only that this is all nonsense, quickly put right with a word to Amberdrake. Unless—" She clenched her claws in vexation; if Makke had already told the Chief of the Servants what had happened, there was no way that Zhaneel could save the situation. "You haven't told anyone but me yet, have you?"

Makke shook her head miserably. "I have not yet confessed my crime, great lady," she said, tears pouring down her cheeks afresh. "But I wanted to say farewell to you and to the little ones before my dismissal. Please forgive—"

"There is nothing to forgive, Makke, and I do notwant you to report this until you and I have had a chance to speak with Skandranon and Amberdrake—" Zhaneel began, reaching out her left talon to surreptitiously hook the hem of Makke's robe so that the old woman could not run off without tearing herself free of Zhaneel's grip. "I…"

The door to the suite opened, thudding into the wall.

Makke and Zhaneel turned as one, as surprised by the fact that no one had knocked as the fact that the door had hit the wall.

Winterhart stood in the doorway, one hand clutching a wreath of tawny-gold lilies, the other at her throat, convulsed around an elaborate necklace of carved amber lilies and solid gold and bronze sun-disks. Her face was as pale as a cloud, and her expression that of a stunned deer.

She stumbled into the room as Makke and Zhaneel stared, and fumbled the door shut behind her.

"Winterhart?" Zhaneel said, into the leaden silence. "What is wrong?"

Winterhart looked at Zhaneel as if she had spoken in some strange tongue; she licked her lips, blinked several times, and made two or three efforts to reply before she finally got any words out.

"The—King," she said hoarsely, her eyes blank with disbelief. "Shalaman—"

"What abouthim?" Zhaneel persisted, when she fell silent.

But when Winterhart spoke again, it was Zhaneel's turn to stare with disbelief.

"He—" Winterhart's hands crushed the lilies, and her knuckles whitened under the strain. "He has asked me to marry him."

* * *

"You must confine us both to our suites," Skandranon was insisting, to an increasingly alarmed Leyuet. "You must place us under guard, if you will not imprison us."

Frantically, Leyuet looked around for a higher authority, but the King and Palisar were both gone, Silver Veil had vanished earlier with Amberdrake, and only he and Skandranon were together in this little side-chamber. This, of course, was precisely the way Skan wanted things.

He's one of Shalaman's protocol administrators. These demands are going to send him into a spinning frenzy. He can't grant them, of course. I already made the bold, dramatic gesture, which forced the King to counter it with a bold, dramatic sign of trust.

"The Emperor has decreed that nothing of the kind is to occur," Leyuet said at last, forced to rely on his own judgment. "You must notbe placed under arrest. Such a thing would be dishonorable. It is impossible to agree to this demand of yours."

Iknow,Skan thought smugly. That's why I made it.

"Are you saying that I am free to move about this Court as I will? That this is what the Emperor wants?" Skan retorted, allowing skepticism to creep into his voice. "That can't be right."

"I tell you, it is!" Leyuet insisted, his face now so contorted with concern that it resembled a withered fruit. "You must move freely about the Court—nay, the Court, the Palace, the entire city! This is the King's decree! This is how he shows his trust in you!"

There is a certain glint in his eyes... I think he has finally figured out that this might be a better move on their part than trying to keep us locked up. After all, that didn't work before. If we actually were guilty, this kind of freedom might make us careless, and give them a chance to trap us, and I'm sure those are precisely the thoughts that are going through Leyuet's mind at this very moment.

So, there would probably be watchers, covert and overt, keeping an eye on Skan and Amberdrake at all times. That was just fine with Skandranon. He wantedto be watched.

He continued to express doubt, though, and Leyuet continued to express the King's wishes, and all the while he was making plans, grateful that it was very difficult to read a gryphon's facial expressions.

I will wait until Kechara contacts me tonight, and I will tell Judeth to send only the Silvers and keep the rest of the delegation at home. I'll tell her to fortify White Gryphon. We might yet need to defend the settlement before this is over.

And he had one more request of Judeth; one he knew that she would understand. He had a list of things he wished her to take out of the storage chests in his lair—and he would ask her to prepare and send a cask of ebony feather-dye.

And last, but by no means least, he would bid her to tell the settlement of White Gryphon that the Black Gryphon was back.

The Black Gryphonis back.

Shalaman had long been in the habit of listening to his court secretaries with half of his mind, while the other half mused on subjects that had nothing to do with the minor issues at hand. Whatever he left to the secretaries to read to him wasminor, after all; that was why he had them read these letters to him after Evening Court and the Entertainment, and just before he retired. He had a mind that was, perhaps, a trifle too active; he needed to tire it or he would never be able to sleep.

So the secretaries read the innumerable petitions, and he grunted a "yes," "no," or "later—delay him," and he let his thoughts circle around other quarry.

Tonight, they circled Winterhart, that strange, pale beauty from the North. Engaging—nay, fascinating! She had many of the attributes of the incomparable Silver Veil, but unlike a kestra'chern, Winterhart was attainable....

Silver Veil could never give heart and soul to any single person. No kestra'chern can. That is why they are kestra'chern; their hearts are too wide for a single person to compass. But Winterhart– ah, Winterhart—

Like Silver Veil in elegance, in grace... not precisely a shadow of the kestra'chern, but reachable. Shalaman had learned, if he had learned anything at all, that there was no point in yearning for the unattainable. Better to have the moonflower that one could touch than to lose one's heart to the moon.

Logic gave him plenty of arrows to spend against the target of Palisar's inevitable objections. This would be a valuable gesture; even in the light of the murders. Should Amberdrake prove tobe the murderer, he will be repudiated, and wedding her would mollify the northerners. Marrying her would create the kind of alliance that would bring them into my Kingdom as vassals rather than allies. The gryphons alone are worth wedding her for!

So he would tell Palisar and Leyuet—though he did not think that the Truthsayer would object, only the Speaker.

He would not tell them his other reasons.

This is the kind of woman, like Silver Veil, who could make me happy when I am not in the Court's gaze.Silver Veil was not always there when he needed—company, companionship, pure and simple. She had other duties, others who needed her skills as much as he. Winterhart could be only for him.

She said little enough about herself, but he sensed that she hid depths that she had not disclosed. She carried herself well, unconsciously projecting a nobility of spirit that spoke of noble birth, just like Silver Veil. But unlike Silver Veil, her surface was not entirely flawless; there were hints of vulnerability. One could reach her if one tried.

He had ten Year-Sons and two Year-Daughters, born of the Year-Brides of his first decade of rule. He need not wed her for heirs, for he needed none. He could wed her for himself alone.

The first secretary coughed and reached for water, his throat raw. Shalaman waved to the second to begin where the first had left off, as his thoughts drifted northward—not to Winterhart, but to the place where she had come from.

White Gryphon; no parrot in the world can crackthat palm-fruit.His spies had drifted through the city in the guise of sailors and other harmless sorts, and the word that they sent back was of caution. The city was built for defense, and with very little work could be made impregnable. Technically, it was within his borders—but only technically. If he had to make war upon them, his allies would rightly say that a settlement perched so precariously on the edge of his lands was not worth disputing over. His allies would be correct. There were troubles enough in his Empire without taking on a nasty little border war. The sudden failure of magic and the strange creatures emerging from the deserts and jungles in the wake of magical catastrophe were quite enough to occupy the rest of his tenure on the Lion Throne.

As for the newcomers themselves, unlike Palisar, he saw no harm in them. They were a fact; they were not going to leave, and their very existence meant a change in Haighlei ways, whether or not anyone admitted it. Precedent was important, too, since there might yet be more Northerners to come. If they came, they would mean change, too.

We desire change even as we fear it. Like children looking for demons in the dark, but hoping the demons will bring us three wishes, or wealth, or magic carpets to ride....

And whether or not Palisar liked the presence of the newcomers and the changes they would bring, their discovery on the eve of the twenty-year Eclipse Ceremony was too serendipitous to be coincidental. If I were a religious man, I would call it an omen.

Even Palisar would accept and embrace a change that was mandated at the height of the Eclipse. When the sun vanishes at midday, then change comes to the Haighlei.That was the word in the holy books themselves, many of which had been written following changes that came with the Ceremonies of the past. It was wise of our gods to give us this. We love things to remain the same, but if they remain the same forever, we will rot as a people. Pah, if they had remained the same forever, we would still be a collection of little villages of thatched huts, hunting with copper-headed spears, growing only yams, lying in fear of the lions in the dark! Or else– a nation more flexible would have discovered us and carried us away to be slaves in their fields.

"Tell him it is impossible until after the Eclipse," he said, in answer to one of the petitions. "If it is still an issue then, I will reconsider."

Many of the current petitions could be put off until after the Eclipse. Many of them were not problems at all, only the perception of a problem, and simply delaying a decision would make it less of a perceived problem with every passing day. Others—well, they tied in with the decisions hewould have to make about these people from White Gryphon, and none of them could be resolved until he decided what he was going to do about them andmade his decrees...

...or did not.

At that point, it would become the problem of his successor, for he did not foresee himself living to see another Eclipse Ceremony. Nothing whatsoever could be done about the outlanders until the next Ceremony.

And there are a fair number of Emperors who resolved such tricky problems by just such a postponement,he thought wryly.

But again, Winterhart came into his thoughts. She could be the perfect, symbolic embodiment of that change; the focus for it, the way to present it to Shalaman's more doubting or hidebound subjects in an acceptable form.

If only Silver Veil—

But Silver Veil was a kestra'chern, and she, too, was bound by the edicts of the ages. She was not for any one man. Her office was too important, and not even the Emperor could take her for himself.

He had already proposed marriage to Winterhart anyway, this evening, before that dreadful interruption of the Entertainment.

She had been overwhelmed, of course, as any woman would. She had stammered something about being bound to Amberdrake, though, and there wasa child, now that he came to think about it—

Shalaman was too well-schooled to frown, but his thoughts darkened for a moment.

Still, that may not be a problem for long, after this evening.In a way, the fourth murder had come as something of a blessing. It was rather difficult for even the most sensitive to be dreadfully upset about the death of that harridan, Lady Fanshane. She had moved into the life of Lady Sherisse years ago, turning the poor thing into a man-hating recluse, and she was cordially detested by most of the wiser folk in Shalaman's Court. And once Lady Sherisse had drunk herself into an early grave, Lady Fanshane had been circling the court like a vulture, looking for another victim to fatten on.

Still, she hadbeen murdered, and murder was a crime most foul (and never mind that in the laws of return, Lady Fanshane could be considered guilty of the murder of her former paramour), and evidence was mounting that it was Amberdrake who was guilty of that crime, and perhaps the previous three murders as well. Once there was enough evidence, Amberdrake would be out of the way, and Winterhart would be free to accept the honor that the Emperor had offered her.

He might be innocent,muttered a third part of his mind, a part he seldom heard from. This might be some strange conspiracy, and Amberdrake the victim of it as much as those who were slain.

No. That was utter nonsense. If– if—Amberdrake were truly innocent, why had he not asked for the services of the Truthsayer immediately? If his conscience was clear, the Truthsayer would know; as the King's guest, he was entitled to the offices of the highest Truthsayer in the land, Leyuet, who was also the leader of the Spears of the Law. If Leyuet declared him innocent, not even Palisar would challenge that declaration.

So, obviously, he had something to fear from a Truthsayer's examination.

But what if these people know nothing of Truthsayers?niggled that annoying little voice. What if he does not know hehas the right to such an examination? It is magic, after all, and all the outlanders have been cautioned against the use of magic. Why, what if they do not even have such a thing as Truthsayers among them? How can he ask for something he is not aware exists?

Oh, that was nonsense! Of course these people must have Truthsayers! How could any society exist without the means to tell truth from falsehood? That was insane! Besides, wouldn't Silver Veil have said something if there were no such things as Truthsayers among the cultures of the north?

No, Amberdrake, if not directly guilty, knew something of the murders, enough to make him fear the touch of Leyuet's mind on his. That would make him guilty of conspiracy to murder, which was just as great a crime as murder itself.

It would be only a matter of time now. Either the evidence would become irrefutable, Amberdrake would slip up and be caught, or he would finally break down and confess.

And then Winterhart would be free—and once she was free, she would be his. Then he would be lonely no more.

Hadanelith flung open the windows of the darkened chamber, and the night breeze blew the gauzy curtains about, giving them the uncanny semblance of grasping, ectoplasmic hands.

This would be the first time he had dispatched two victims within a day of each other—but the Haighlei were expecting the same pattern as the last time, and they had all let their guards down in the wake of the last murder.

Fools; they patterned their lives like pieces on a game-board, and expected everyone else to do the same!

Even this rather ineffectual old biddy; she had followed the same pattern every night for as long as he and Kanshin had watched her. It had been child's play to insinuate himself up the wall and into her chamber after she dismissed all of her servants for the night. She hated the sounds of other people breathing in their sleep (or worse, snoring), or so Kanshin said, and she would not abide another human being or animal in her chambers after she retired for the night. She would ring a bell to summon her servants once she awoke, but from the moment she took to her bed to the moment she left it, she was alone. And not even a murderer on the loose would induce her to change that pattern.

Fool.

Hadanelith had pinned Lady Linnay to her bed, stuffed the end of his latest special carving down her throat to prevent even the slightest sound out of her—

That was a bit unsatisfactory. I would have liked to have heard her beg.

Then he had dragged her over to the window, his skin pressed against her bedclothes, at precisely the spot she mighthave stood if she'd heard something large—say, the size of a gryphon—land on her balcony. Then he pretended to let her go.

Predictably– Pah, these fools are so tediously predictable!—she had turned to run, and he had struck her down from behind with his new sculpture, a club carved into the exact likeness of a gryphon's foreleg.

He opened the window now, so that the overwhelming body of evidence would be that it was open before she died. Then he stood over her unconscious body, and raised his club again.

As he brought it down in a punishing blow, regretting the necessity of doing this in the dark, he felt just a little bored. These Haighlei as a whole were just not interesting prey—the Kaled'a'in may have been sanctimonious, sickeningly sweet prigs, but at least they didsomething once in a while. The Haighlei just lined up like good little sheep for his knife. They didn't even alter their habits when it was obvious who and what kinds of folk his targets were!

Well, they aren't really important,he consoled himself with a grim smile, bringing the club down on the body with all of his strength. They aren't my real prey, anyway. They're only tools. Their deaths are not the end, only the means. They're only the stepping stones to my real goal, the ladder to reach my revenge.

Although—actually, this was turning out to be a little more interesting than he had thought it would. I've never actually beaten anyone to death before. Hmm. Fascinating. I didn't realize how much punishment a body could take and still breathe!He knew it could be done, of course; provided nothing like the spleen or the skull was injured, a great deal of injury could be inflicted in theory before the body was so broken that it literally bled to death from bruising. But he'd never actually witnessed such a thing.

In fact,he thought, beginning to feel some of that manic strength coming into his arm that only the best kills brought out in him, this is rather fun!

He wanted to giggle, but he kept his mirth well-contained as energy poured into him and the club felt as if it weighed no more than a straw. It rose and fell of its own accord, and he brought it down, over and over, harder and harder, the thudding of wood into flesh pounding in his ears like the thumping of his own heartbeat pounding with excitement and—

The club splintered. He heard the crackof the wood over the dull sound of the blow.

He stopped in mid-swing, immediately. Hewas too well-trained, and much too clever, to risk a final strike and leave behind even a single shred of evidence that it had notbeen the claw of a gryphon that had done the deed. Instead, he stood over the now-motionless body, breathing heavily, while he surveyed his handiwork as best he could by moonlight.

Quite impressive. He'd left the head intact except for the initial blow that had rendered her unconscious. For the rest—there was nothing to show that she had notbeen bludgeoned to death by the fisted claw of a gryphon. There were the cuts and tears in the skin that even a claw closed tightly could and wouldleave, and the telltale signs of the essentially bony nature of the "hand" that had beaten her. Virtually every bone in her torso had been smashed, however, and the stiff and structured Haighlei would assume that no human could do that.

Which will leave the obvious, of course. Skandranon.

Lady Linnay had been one of Lady Fanshane's few friends, and had been one of the loudest in her insistence that Amberdrake was guilty and must be made to pay then and there. And as such, she became an obvious target for Kaled'a'in elimination.

Hadanelith grinned as he moved carefully away from the body. Somewhere nearby, Noyoki was capturing all of the potent energy released by this death, and channeling it into whatever project hehad in mind. Kanshin waited above, with a rope-ladder, ready to spirit him off the balcony and across two rooftops. Noyoki would meet them both there, and use a bit more of that channeled energy to lift them down to the ground, noiselessly, and efficiently, putting them all in a garden cul-de-sac where Kanshin had concealed the servants' livery they had worn earlier to move through the Palace grounds.

Of course, no one who was not a Palace servant would ever even thinkof wearing Palace livery—nor would the Spears of the Law consider that possibility. It was simply Not Done. Here, all crimes worked by ritual and custom!

Hadanelith backed up onto the balcony, glad for the first time of his pale skin, which blended into the stonework very nicely. Of course, Kanshin would have contrived to look like a shadow, but still—

Still, even he hasn't got the audacity to do work like this in the nude.Even if this murder was discovered before they got off the Palace grounds, watchers would search in vain for bloodstained clothing. There wouldn't be any. And one quick wash with the bucket of water that Kanshin had up there with the ladder would remove any trace of evidence from Hadanelith's person.

I will never forget their faces when I told them how I planned to avoid getting blood on my clothing. And of course, for all but one of these old hags, the sight of a naked man in their rooms was shocking enough to stun them all by itself. They didn't even think to scream until I'd made screaming impossible.

The only time he had worn anythinghad been this very afternoon, when he'd worn just a bit of Amberdrake's stolen finery. He'd let his target struggle just enough to tear the clothing from his back in an artistic fashion.

That time he'd brought his change of livery with him, of course. And he'd cleaned himself up in the pool in the prey's own little garden. Had anyone noticed a sign of blood there?

Probably not. But if they did, they'd assume it was Amberdrake cleaning up after himself.

That was the essence of making all of this work; attending to detail. With no bloody clothing to dispose of, that left one detail already taken care of. With no bloodabout, there was nothing for a mage to trace.

He would have to remind Noyoki to cleanse this club very thoroughly, though.

The rope-ladder dropped down from above, and Hadanelith grabbed it, clenching the end of the club between his teeth so that he could use both hands in climbing.

The night breeze felt very good, slipping along his skin like a caress. Was this how a gryphon felt when it flew? Was this how a gryphon felt when it made a good kill, and launched itself up into the vast dark vault of the night sky?

Ishould have been born a gryphon!he thought, laughing to himself, as he let his energy carry him up the ladder effortlessly. But no, not a gryphon. Tonight– I was better than a gryphon! Tonight– I was the ultimate predator, the killer of gryphons! Yes. Oh, yes. Tonight, I wasmakaar!